Life as a Teenage Vampire

by Amanda Meuwissen

  “Is this really the man you want to follow?” Wendy ignored him and looked up at her jailers, who as shocked as they seemed to be to discover the vampire king in their midst, looked wary of carrying through with orders from an authority they were no longer sure they trusted.

  “Enough talk!” Bane shouted at her.

  Eli looked distant as he leaned against her back, the other hunters faltering, unsure, but not willing to act in our favor either.

  Bane turned back to Alec. “If we kill you…they’ll all know. Every vampire would feel it. Some believe your death would cause them all to die, but if that’s only another myth, and instead they’re alerted to your demise, they’ll all come after us, and we won’t be able to hide.”

  “Fascinating that you think you can hide now,” Alec said. That icy tone was low and controlled. He didn’t seem afraid, even though Bane had the upper hand, but I knew he was angry.

  It was just like my dad, the way anger, even though he rarely showed it or had reason to explode, would build at the corners of his eyes. Alec just needed a reason, a chance to act. What he might do, could do, likely would do to Bane played out in my imagination like a swath of carnage.

  “Better we kill Mavus, and keep you around,” Bane said, using his device again when Alec jerked at the mention of harming me. “Yes…we could keep you alive just enough that no supernatural shockwaves would filter to the others. They’d never know. Not until we kill them all too.”

  Finally, Alec fell back, the electricity shocking him again and again as Bane continued to use it on him. I growled before I realized I was poised to jump to his defense, and Bane switched the frequency to me. It hurt as much as it had the first time, and I couldn’t move to do anything about it. I gasped when he released me.

  “I’ve heard tales…that you could be burnt to a crisp and rise from the ashes.” Bane stood over Alec, who blinked as if barely conscious. “Beheaded and still laugh at those who lopped it from your shoulders. Even staked you could potentially come back. But I don’t need you dead. I don’t want you dead.”

  He pulled a wooden stake from his jacket. He didn’t hold it over Alec. He took two steps closer to me and yanked me up from the ground, holding me against his back with the stake pressed to my chest while we stood facing Alec on the ground. The consistent shocks made every move I attempted feel sluggish. All my heightened strength had fled me.

  The look in Alec’s eyes as he sat up again made me shiver, even though he wasn’t looking at me, but past me, at Bane.

  “I’ll let you live until the last of your precious children are wiped from the earth,” Bane swore to Alec, “and then…if one of the ways we usually kill you monsters isn’t enough, we’ll try them all, over and over again until—”

  The crack of a rifle shattered the stillness of the trees around us, one particular tree, just behind the gathering of hunters, exploding out from the center of its trunk as the shot hit home.

  All three of the hunters with Wendy and Eli turned at the sound, one of the women immediately backpedaling away and training her gun on their surroundings. But the other two didn’t react fast enough. The shot was all Wendy and Eli needed to reveal that they had been slowly working themselves out of their bonds.

  Together, they leapt from the ground, each of them taking down a hunter and wrestling their weapon away. Wendy succeeded in moments and had her hunter on the ground. Eli struggled enough with his that the hunter who had backpedaled returned and aimed her gun at his back.

  Another rifle shot fired, hitting a different tree, and sent everything into a new surge of chaos as Bane threw me to the ground and whirled around to discover just who it was that had started attacking them.

  I already knew. And it thrilled as much as terrified me. I just hoped Connor knew what he was doing.

  Episode 36

  Connor

  Connor had ten rounds before he’d need to reload. He had enough extra rounds in his pockets, but hoped he didn’t fire so much that it came to that. So far he’d fired twice, all exactly where he intended, with mostly the intended results. He had eight shots left. He resisted the urge to aim the next one at Bane’s head.

  “We need to distract them,” he heard Aurora hiss over his cell phone. She’d hooked them all into a conference call before they left the Charger.

  “I’ll go right,” Jules said, “make as much noise as I can to get the far hunter to come after me. Nick, cover Wendy.”

  “Cover how—”

  “Just stay in the trees behind her and watch in case you need to tackle the hunter she downed. He might try to go for his gun again, or another weapon. Michael, stay with Aurora so she can get a clear shot around Bane from the other side. That way they won’t be able to pinpoint where Connor’s shots are coming from.”

  “Okay,” Michael said, his voice wavering only slightly.

  Aurora might be empress of backstage, but Jules knew strategy. Hours upon hours of running raids in MMO RPGs had its advantages.

  Connor stayed where he was, the most hidden location possible with a tree for cover and a bush blending him into the scenery on his left. He could see everyone in play from his position, except for his friends hiding in the trees, making a perimeter around the hunters.

  A loud pattering noise came from the right. The hunter who had been going to rescue her comrades on the ground turned instead toward the nearby trees. Once she reached them, the silver and red of the prop axe flew into view, and the next thing Connor saw was the hunter on the ground, dazed. Jules snatched up the woman’s gun and hid back behind the trees.

  Wendy had the gun she’d taken from one hunter, while Eli mirrored her, aiming the gun he’d taken at the last of the three, leaving only Bane, armed with a stake and the device he’d been using to send shocks through Emery and Alec.

  “You continue to defy me?” Bane roared at Eli.

  “Yes, because this is wrong, Uncle.”

  “Even knowing who he is?” Bane pointed at Alec.

  “Especially knowing that.”

  Alec, looking barely conscious, tilted his head at the hunter who had switched sides for them.

  Bane snarled and pointed the device in his hand at Alec, who arched in pain off the ground, then at Emery, who cried out. Connor made an abortive jerk forward, his stomach muscles clenching as he flinched, but held back, sending ripples of pain up his chest where he was still healing, and really, really should be in a bed right now with more high quality drugs pumping through his system.

  He fired again, the bullet zipping past Bane’s ear into the distant trees.

  Bane glared his direction. “You think I can’t tell where you’re coming from? If I know where you are then you have very few bargaining chips, while I—” He raised the device again, but cut off as a bullet lodged into the tree behind him, coming from Aurora. He whirled around, unsure how to keep the new shooter, where he believed Connor to be, and Wendy and Eli in his sights all at once.

  The hunter Jules had downed was shaking her head as she crawled to her feet, looking over the ground for her lost weapon. When she couldn’t find it, she stood slowly, raising her hands in appeal to Wendy and Eli, who still had guns trained on the others.

  “You better be willing to kill me,” Bane said, eyes darting everywhere around him that presented danger. He pressed the device again, keeping Emery’s body seizing as he snatched him from the ground, the device and stake clumsily held in his hands until he had a hold of Emery like before.

  Connor didn’t dare take a shot with Emery in Bane’s arms. Emery could survive a bullet, but how injured was he with those shocks ripping through him? Aurora didn’t risk it either. Wendy and Eli stood at a standstill with the hunters, though none of them looked ready to leap to Bane’s aid.

  “Connor, if you get a shot, take it,” Jules whispered ove
r the phones. “I’ll make sure the chick by me stays out of it. Nick, move around so you can grab the device Bane’s carrying if he drops it. Aurora, back up anyone who needs it.”

  “Wait, where did Alec go?” Aurora asked.

  That was a stupid question, Alec was right—

  Connor gaped. He’d been so focused on Bane and Emery, he hadn’t been paying attention, but right there on the ground where Alec should have been was just the wrist cuff, sparking all on its own in the grass.

  “Do you think either of them would show mercy if—” Bane grandstanded, but cut off abruptly when he saw the empty space on the ground. “How…?”

  The air was tense, charged like the electric current running through Emery, as the small clearing within the trees stilled, everything quiet, and Connor gasped in a breath. He had a shot. Bane stood still facing just where he needed him, too shocked at finding Alec gone to react fast enough. Connor slid his finger onto the trigger.

  “Now,” a voice whispered near him, and he fired, spurred on by the sound.

  Connor jerked his head behind him, expecting to see Alec, but there was only a rustle of the bushes. When he looked back, he saw Bane on the ground, having released Emery and the stake and device, as he gripped his calf where Connor had shot clean through. He’d have aimed higher for his thigh—or his head—but then he’d just be like Bane and Gamble, and both Connor and Emery were better than that.

  Jules revealed herself from behind her tree and tripped the female hunter back to the ground, gun tucked into her belt as she held the heavy wooden axe over the hunter in warning. Aurora and Michael came out of hiding on the other side, Aurora keeping her gun on Bane, while Michael stood by imposingly with one of Jules’ baseball bats, looking to each of the hunters as if daring them to make a move.

  Just as swiftly, Nick appeared from the trees to kick the stake away from Bane and pluck the device from the ground. He found the off switch immediately, and Emery sagged to his knees in relief when the last of blue sparks faded from traveling over his body.

  Connor was the last to step into the clearing, since he’d been poised the furthest back. He held his rifle pointed at the ground, since Aurora had Bane covered.

  Bane didn’t seem surprised that they were all teenagers. He was from a family of hunters; well-armed teens was likely old hat for him. But he sneered up at Connor as he laid out on the ground defenseless.

  “You missed,” he growled.

  “Take that from the super-villain handbook?” Connor said, sharing a smile with Emery as he climbed to his feet. “Try this response then,” he turned back to Bane. “I didn’t.”

  Aurora and Michael moved to help surround Bane, while Wendy, Eli, and Jules ushered the remaining hunters together to keep a better collective eye on them.

  It was when they were all together, clearly the victors, with Emery recovered now as he tore the cuff from his wrist, that Alec appeared, clapping.

  “Well done, children. Truly inspired. I didn’t even break a sweat.”

  Connor wasn’t sure if he was impressed or annoyed, which pretty much summed up his general feelings toward Alec.

  Bane rested his head on the ground as Alec approached him. “You could have gotten away at any time.”

  “Indeed,” Alec said. “But where would the fun have been in that?”

  “The shocks didn’t affect you?” Emery gaped at him.

  “Oh, they smarted just fine, dear boy, but not enough to incapacitate my level of power.” He grinned his manic grin, but it soon dropped, and that familiar sadness that proved his age showed through—an age Connor now knew was much higher than he’d ever guessed. “My sincerest apologies for the pain you had to endure tonight, Emery. Had it been necessary, I would have stepped in, but you see, I had faith that we would not be fighting alone tonight. I didn’t realize quite so many would come to our aid,” he gestured at Michael and raised an eyebrow at Nick, who shrugged back at him, “but all the better. If I’d intervened sooner, you see, this man would no longer have his head.” He looked down on Bane coldly. “I didn’t think you wanted tonight’s events to end that way, Emery.”

  Connor shivered just from the chill in Alec’s gaze. Bane stared up at him with equal hatred.

  “Besides, you hardly needed my assistance,” Alec brightened, slapping his hands together once more as he looked around at everyone involved in the rescue and finally rested his gaze on Connor.

  “You’re really the king?” Connor asked. They’d arrived just in time to hear that reveal, if it was true. “Just how old are you?”

  “Now, Connor,” Alec pointed a playfully accusing finger in Connor’s face, “what did we say about asking a lady his age?”

  Connor snorted.

  “Wow,” Emery said, “I can’t believe it. Any of this. You’re…” he pointed, flabbergasted at Alec, “and you guys…” he looked around at his friends, “I don’t know what to say.” He finally settled on, “Thank you.”

  “Now you know why your bloodline is so powerful, Emery,” Alec said, placing a solid hand on Emery’s shoulder. “So, as my successor, should such a time ever arise that I am…gone, the role of leader, as the closest to the source, would fall to you. So I ask you now,” he glanced down at Bane then turned his attention to the three hunters held in place by Wendy, Eli, and Jules with her axe, “what should we do with these hunters?”

  ~

  Me? The weight of Alec’s hand on my shoulder felt ten times heavier as I looked at Bane’s followers. Eli had sided with us, but what about them? They hadn’t been given much chance to hear our argument, but I could tell they had doubts. None of them looked at us—at me and Alec, or the humans on our side—with disdain the way Bane did, only curiosity, and maybe disbelief.

  I still couldn’t believe Jules had downed one of the hunters with a prop axe. But then, yes, I could, just as much as it didn’t surprise me to see Aurora pointing a 9mm at Bane on the ground, her aim never wavering.

  I looked back at the group of hunters. “Who of you actually buys his bullshit?” I gestured down at Bane. “If we really were like he thinks, we could kill all of you. Glamour my friends. But that’s not who we are. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard weren’t like that either. You heard the truth. Bane wants to kill people like me without discrimination. He wants Alec for some twisted plan to wipe us all out. But I’m still just me. I’m no different than I was before this happened to me, and suddenly I was under attack. By you.

  “Wendy told me about the pact. It’s supposed to mean something, right? That you want to help people, to protect them, not hunt down someone who never meant harm to anyone. Alec clearly doesn’t have to play nice here—whoever he really is or was in the past.”

  I had to eye him because I didn’t know if Alec was even his real name. Probably not. Bane had dropped names like Judas and Cain. I’m sure Connor would add Dracula or Vlad to his repertoire of Fright Night and Nosferatu after this. But right now that didn’t matter, because Alec was just Alec too.

  “So tell me,” I said, “if you really believe like he does, or if you’re ready to follow Eli instead.”

  Eli straightened when I mentioned his name. He wasn’t the oldest among the other hunters, and I didn’t know if his lineage carried any weight to hunter hierarchy, but I could tell he’d be a good leader. He’d gone out of his way to discover the truth, and against all odds, against family and friends, he’d defended us just to defend what was right.

  The hunters looked around at each other, each nodding, their faces mostly impassive but resolute. The oldest after Bane, the one Eli had taken down, nodded at me. “We’ll uphold the pact,” she said.

  I sighed before I realized I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t know what we would have done with them if they’d said otherwise. I still didn’t know what to do with Bane. Turn him over to Tim and the pol
ice?

  Just as I thought that and looked back at Bane on the ground, I realized that too many eyes had drifted from him to watch the hunters’ reactions. Even Aurora was distracted enough that she wasn’t ready when Bane slid a knife from a holster on his leg and jammed it into Michael’s calf.

  Bane leapt up to run, and all of us stepped back from the flurry of movement, assessing how to react. I feared Aurora might fire without thinking, feared Alec might attack, but in the end, neither of them had to do anything.

  Connor stepped in Bane’s path, dropped his rifle, and aimed with his prosthetic instead. He brought his middle and ring fingers into his palm, otherwise pointing palm outward, and his entire hand dropped down at the wrist with a burst of white foam and smoke striking Bane right in the face. Bane stuttered back and, not even a full foot from where he’d started, Michael tackled him to the ground in true captain of the football team fashion.

  “Freeze, asshole,” Connor grinned, unable to resist a pun when channeling Captain Cold. I could tell by the way he stared at his arm afterward that he was overjoyed the mechanics had worked out as planned.

  “Nice try and all,” Michael added, keeping Bane pinned as he sat up with his knees in the man’s back and yanked the knife from his leg with one hand while the other kept Bane’s arms crossed, “but you got the wrong leg.” He knocked on it to the hollow sound of plastic. When Connor stepped up to him, they high-fived—albeit gently, I noticed.

  “I suppose this brings us to our next problem,” Alec said, all of us, the other hunters included forming a tight circle around Bane, no longer with guns or weapons pointed at anyone. “What of him, Emery?”

  Even though Alec had already asked me about the hunters, the question made my breath catch. It shouldn’t be my decision. It was Alec’s children who’d been killed first. And Eli was Bane’s family. The authority shouldn’t fall to me.